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The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

Oh, they are different

25 comments on Oh, they are different

Oh, they are different

: Saudis won’t even debate whether to let women drive:

All he was asking, says Mohammad al-Zulfa, was that his fellow legislators think – just think – about studying the possibility of allowing women – not all of them, just some – to drive.

But circumspect though he was, he has touched off a fierce controversy, pitting women’s rights campaigners against conservatives who believe that lifting Saudi Arabia’s ban on women drivers is un-Islamic and will lead to permissiveness.

25 responses to “Oh, they are different”

  1. Ed Poinsett Avatar
    Ed Poinsett

    Well, the conservatives are right!

  2. Arrr Avatar
    Arrr

    What’s Amnesty International’s take on this? Wait, forgot, they’re too busy planning the next DNC to give a damn.

  3. Kat Avatar
    Kat

    The Secretary General of Amnesty is a muslim. I’m sure she concurs. She likely doesn’t see snipping a woman’s clitoris as barbaric either. Some here worry about a nipple showing and here we have women stabled like breeding stock who aren’t to even enjoy sex let alone look sexy–they get bagged and hooded and chained to their stables.

  4. Spaceman Avatar
    Spaceman

    I read Arab News everyday. Lots of good social commentary like how the Koran forebids women driving. I particularly like their endearing editorials warning the USA of our impending loss of freedom of the press and that Bush is going to make a dictatorship out of our country. Swell commentary from a place that has about nil
    freedom of the press and about as dictatorial as it gets.
    http://www.arabnews.com/

  5. dries Avatar
    dries

    i believe sanitation & running water are un-islamic.
    name one thing, apart of oil & dried dates, those people are capable of producing. mayhem & terror?
    if it weren’t for oil those savages would only have been able to pelt each other ( and us too) with dried camel dung. not plastic explosives…

  6. Rich Drees Avatar
    Rich Drees

    Now they may have a point. I mean, in high school, my girlfriend used to drive on about half the dates we went on and I distinctly remember getting lucky in the backseat of her car more than once…

  7. Steven I. Weiss Avatar
    Steven I. Weiss

    Jeff – Noteworthy, isn’t it, how this AP copy seems so very much biased, and yet so very much more meaningful and interesting?

  8. Cal Avatar
    Cal

    So will Amnesty INTERNATIONAL be looking into this issue?

  9. paladin Avatar
    paladin

    Ok, let’s look at this realistically. Would you rather deal with rush hour traffic by driving yourself, or would you rather have a limo take you to where you’re going? How about burkas? Ever feel a little fat? Bad hair day? Don’t feel like dressing up and doing makeup before going out? Let’s try to have tolerance for other cultures here, people. The USA ain’t the only way.

  10. GirlB Avatar
    GirlB

    So I was out late, shopping for veils, and spent all my cab money so I was forced to steal a car to get home before my husband found out and beat me. They’re chopping off my left hand for theft and my right hand for driving while female.

  11. spaceman Avatar
    spaceman

    Well at least Bush & the Suadi’s are in agreement on AI.
    http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=64806&d=3&m=6&y=2005

  12. Name Withheld Avatar
    Name Withheld

    Amnesty International have critized Saudi Arabia before about how woman are treated. And while they may not have specifically targeted the fact the women aren’t allowed to drive they have critized them on the limitations of movement for women. If you aren’t allowed to move freely without permission of a male guardian then does it matter that you can’t drive? I would guess that the first one is a bit more important then the latter…
    Read the report here.
    Sorry. Amnesty International has written about it.
    I’m guessing people that critize Amnesty International should actually visit their site and search before attempting stupid jokes… But then why bother to search and form an opinion on ones own when there is Fox News and Scotty to tell you all you need to know…
    More Amnesty International reports on Saudi Arabia here and here.
    I also remember that AI was a credibly source when reporting about how Saddam Hussein abused the Iraqis, but somehow when we get critizied they are no longer credible…
    Saudi Arabia has demanded on earlier US visits by the crown prince that no female air traffic controllers should be allowed to speak to the Saudi plane and this was granted. American female personnel in Saudia Arabia has been forced to wear abayas since 1991 when they went outside of American bases in Saudia Arabia. I’m guessing Saudi Arabia matters more to us than women rights….

  13. Kat Avatar
    Kat

    Yes, Amnesty has more stories about abuse by the US than all the real abusers put together. Amnesty are a bunch of leftist loons.
    http://www.publiuspundit.com/?p=1149

  14. Name Withheld Avatar
    Name Withheld

    I hope you did read the url you provided about how they came up with this “statistics”… They used google news to google “human rights abuses xxx” where xxx is name of the country… The US got 2,740 hits and Nepal for instance got 232.
    This would be enough for any thinking being to be able to figure out how stupid this “method” is. A more better way would be to actually visit Amnesty and get statistics from there…
    Anyway.
    Google News mostly collects information from American news sources. American news are rarely interested in what happens outside of the US. I’m actually shocked that there is 232 reports about Nepal…
    Now, who really is the loon?

  15. Kat Avatar
    Kat

    Like what kind of loon wants to believe idiots who don’t have a friggin clue what a gulag is–loons whose secretary gen. covers up muslim atrocities because she is muslim and an organization that contributed heavily to John Kerry. It would be like going to Michael Moore’s site. No thanks, I don’t feel like showering just yet.

  16. Name Withheld Avatar
    Name Withheld

    They know what a gulag is but I would agree that comparing Guantamo bay to a Soviet gulag really isn’t right, but it did make a lot more people talk about Amnesty’s report…
    I really would like some actual proof that the secretary general of Amnesty covers up muslim atrocitices because she’s muslim. And they better be more credible than the last url you posted….
    Here are their reports on some muslim countries:
    Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, Iran and Sudan
    Same goes for any proof that Amnesty, the _organisation_, contributed heavily, or any, money to John Kerry. It’s a different thing if their members/employees gave money to him.
    But I guess this is all about the ‘either you are with us or you are against us’ mentality… The world has two shades, black or white… And obviously Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan all are good countries and Germany and France are both bad….

  17. Kat Avatar
    Kat

    Well, maybe Amnesty should try using a more appropriate G-word–genocide- and make a lot more people talk about the atrocities going on in Darfur. Maybe Amnesty needs to add the word jihad to its vocabulary.

  18. Name Withheld Avatar
    Name Withheld

    Kat, still waiting for you to actually giving me any kind of proof for the two acusations you made earlier in this thread. Not that I’m actually believing that you will provide that.
    And go read this about what Amnesty’s main focuses are.

  19. jeremy in NYC Avatar
    jeremy in NYC

    Name Withheld: You said This would be enough for any thinking being to be able to figure out how stupid this “method” is. A more better way would be to actually visit Amnesty and get statistics from there… and then Now, who really is the loon?
    OK, I’ll take you up on this.
    I went to Amenesty’s site and clicked to the “Library” section, where you can choose which country you want all the items on (the dates cover 1996-present). I then chose several different countries to see how many items Amenesty had on each:
    United States: 1270
    Saudi Arabia: 182
    China: 416
    Iran: 288
    North Korea: 34 (!!)
    So, uh, by the website you pointed to, Kat was right and you were wrong on this one.

  20. Name Withheld Avatar
    Name Withheld

    Jeremy in NYC, _counting_ their reports is as stupid as counting news pages gathered by Google news.
    For instance Amnesty is against the death penalty and it seems like a lot of the people executed in the US gets at least one report (I guessing there actually atleast are two, one before the execution and one after the execution). So you could count every one of these reports as a “US offence” or you could have one report saying that we executed 59 people in 2004. I’m guessing they don’t report on every man or woman killed in China since they don’t have enough info, but they report that China executes anything from 3,400 to 10,000 of their citizens each year.
    I would advise you to look at their lastest report instead.
    And I guessing you are going to start counting headlines in the reports now… Or you might count words…

  21. jeremy in NYC Avatar
    jeremy in NYC

    Name withheld:
    Nothing personal, but that’s the goofiest argument I’ve seen all week.
    For one thing, you said: “A more better way would be to actually visit Amnesty and get statistics from there.” So I did, and you were wrong, so now you’re trying to shift the subject.
    But even ignoring that fact, the qeustion udner consideration is whether or not AI spends a dispoportionate amount of time slamming the US. I’m not sure how looking at their annual report, which has one section on each country, is going to tell us anything about that. AI goes after each country in that report, as it should, for its violations. But what’s noteworthy is how much it spends the rest of its time going after the US, as compared to other, more egregious violators of international human rights law.
    Frankly, reading your response again, I’m not sure why I’m supposed to be comforted by the fact that the 3,400-10,000 executions in China get one mention without names (numbers only), while every person executed in the US gets multiple aciton letters, reports and news items. This is supposed to disprove somehow that AI is US-obsessed?
    I hate to break it to you, but counting AI’s reports kinda is a good way to gather how much attention they pay to something.
    Try again.

  22. Name Withheld Avatar
    Name Withheld

    Ok, I’m going to acknowledge that is was a bit stupid of me to ask Kat to go to Amnestys website to get ‘statistics’, since Amnesty don’t release a ’10 worst offenders last year’ list. I should have told her to check the annual report. I really didn’t think anyone should start counting again, but then I obviously was wrong.
    Jeremy in NYC, so if you got a database of criminals and you got person A who has been arrested for theft 10 times and you got person B that has been arrested for murder one time. In your view who is worse person A or person B?
    I’m not either going to do a top 10 list, but you should be able to see the difference in the anual reports between North Korea who doesn’t allow their citizens free speech and the US who for instance sends of suspected terrorists to Uzbekistan to be tortured.
    In an open society you can get more information about human rights abuses and you are allowed to speak about it. There is a lot more Amnesty members in the US than there is in China and a number of the documents in archive is urgent actions where Amnesty sends inform their members altering them about things that they might be able to influence, if China had been an open society and if people would have had free speech and they had executed the same number of citizens then there would have been a lot more urgent reports about that.
    And finally, when did Amnesty become a untrustworthy left wing organisation? Two years ago their information was good enough to be used by VP Cheney as evidence for attacking Iraq…

  23. jeremy in NYC Avatar
    jeremy in NYC

    N.W., I never said anything about AI being an “untrustworthy left wing organisation.” I also don’t think they’re putting out false statistics, so i think their facts can be relied on, both in the past and now.
    Where they bug me is in what I see as their focus and sense of proportion. When they compare Guantanamo to the Gulag, they cheapen both, and they indicate that their conclusions (NOT their facts) are not to be taken seriously.
    Again, it’s not their annual report I’m talkign about. It’s the obsessive amount of time and energy they spend whacking at the US which leads me to doubt their judgment. Does the US deserve some whacking? Of course. Does it deserve the disporportionate whacking they get over the year? I don’ think so; you may disagree.
    Your “criminal report” analogy doesn’t help here, in part because i’m not disagreeing that other countries committed worse acts, and therefore the annual report would list different offenses. But let’s take it the next step: Suppose Person A committed 3 shopliftings, and Person B committed 2 murders. Now suppose (a) the police put out 50 All-Points Bulletins on the shoplifter, go on TV every night to talk about the culprit, and assign 200 police to catch him/her, and (b) Put out one All-points Bulletin on the murderer, never mention him on TV, and assign two police to catch him. Wouldn’t you think something was awry?
    [P.S. – the open society part? That’s sad. “Let’s focus on the open democracies because they’re easier to deal with, and spend less time on the brutal dictatorships because they’re hard to deal with.” yeesh. How ’bout the fire department saying “Let’s send 10 firemen to put out the trash can fire on 3rd street; we’ll send 2 guys to deal with that 5-alarm office tower blaze -it’s just too darn dangerous and difficult.]

  24. Name Withheld Avatar
    Name Withheld

    The thing about Amnesty being a leftwing organistation wasn’t directed at you. But the only reason we are talking about Amnesty in a thread about something else is because the goverment didn’t like the latest report and they have focused on the soundbite of comparing Guantanmo Bay with a Soviet gulag (which is not a part of the report). And as I have said before in the thread I don’t think it’s a justified comparision, but it made a lot of people interested in their report.
    I’m guessing there is a lot of bulletins regarding our use of the death penalty since people here could for instance write their governor to try to get him to stop the exectution. In China were they execute a lot more people you really not able to do that. Amnesty could send out an urgent alert every day to tell people to protest China’s use of the death penalty but that would be nothing more than spam, people know about about it and people protest about it. That’s why there is a lot of reports about our use of the death penalty but only a few about the the North Korean atrosities.
    I believe that my country should behave better than North Korea, China, Saudi Arabia and Iran, so I set the bar lower for what I’m accepting. I believe we should be compare us to Norway, France, Germany and the Netherlands, not with dictatorships, communists, and other oppressors. Norway doesn’t send prisoners captured in Afghanistan to Uzbekistan for torture and neither should we. You can call it disporportionate whacking, I call it higher standards.
    If Amnesty can’t get specific information about what happens in North Korea then it can’t send out bulletins about it. That’s the problem. Maybe you have a solution on how to find out more about how many is getting tortured there and who they are?

  25. jeremy in NYC Avatar
    jeremy in NYC

    Well, this did come up because several people asked whether AI, which spends a lot o’time whacking the US, would deign to mention a denial of rights to all women of SA (the answer in the Annual Report is, of course, no; I’m glad to see they obliquely touched on it in a side report).
    What you’re saying in the second paragraph again really makes me sad. You;’re saying there’s nothing anyone can do about human rights abuses in the really bad countries, so why try, ’cause it’s just spam. I don’t agree, and I am sad to think you (or anyone) thinks that way. To my mind, the main reason for AI’s existence is to deal with that kind of situation. The citizens of a free and open country are perfectly able to mobilize on behalf of issues without an international organization, and in fact often do. It’s those with noone in their country to help them that need the kind of international attention AI can mobilize the most.
    Your third paragraph is a straw man; that’s the stock answer for “why are you criticizing us for such-and-such behavior when Bad Country X does it all the time?” Keep your astroturf straight. The argument here isn’t that US has not done things deserving of criticism; the argument is that AI is dispropotionately obsessed with the US.
    To go back to your crime analogy: if your grandma is shoplifting something, and some 3-time ex-convict is murdering somebody, should the police throw a disprortionate amount of time into the shoplifting to the detriment of the murder case because they expect more of your grandmother?
    As for finding out about abuses in N.Korea: (a) other groups seem to do it, through refugees, etc., (b) isn’t that what AI is for, and (c) so are you saying if the place is so oppressive and horrible that it’s hard to get specific victim names, AI should just ignore it and focus on places that are a lot better? WTF?